Source: Sensible Sentencing Trust
15 August 2025 – The Sensible Sentencing Trust has today called on the Government to refresh its recent Cowards Punch law announcement with meaningful reform as had been achieved in multiple Australian States – rather than a tough-sounding headline with no actual teeth.
SST National Spokesperson, Louise Parsons today said: “While we welcome the Government’s willingness to address the broad issue, the proposal to introduce a new Cowards Punch law is little more than a name change from ‘Manslaughter’ to ‘Coward’s Punch’ with no change to sentencing requirements. The maximum sentence for both is ‘Life’ which is of course never imposed. It is the sentence that matters, not what it’s called – and not what the irrelevant maximum sentence is.”
“The glaring omission in the recent announcement, is the failure to propose a robust minimum non-parole sentence – which Sensible Sentencing Trust recomm
